Petrophile biloba



Petrophile biloba, commonly known as granite petrophile, is a species of flowering plant in the family Proteaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a shrub with pinnately-divided leaves with sharply-pointed tips, and oval heads of hairy, mostly grey to pink flowers.

Description
Petrophile biloba is a shrub that typically grows to a height of 1–2 m and has hairy branchlets that become glabrous with age. The leaves are 15–20 mm long on a petiole up to 20 mm long, and pinnately-divided to the mid-rib with two or three lobes, each with a sharply-pointed tip. The flowers are arranged in leaf axils, in sessile, oval heads about 15 mm long, sometimes in clusters, with a few deciduous involucral bracts at the base. The flowers are about 17–25 mm long, mostly grey to pink and hairy. Flowering occurs from June to October and the fruit is a nut, fused with others in a oval head 10–14 mm long.

Taxonomy
Petrophile biloba was first formally described in 1830 by Robert Brown in the Supplementum to his Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen from material collected by Charles Fraser near the Swan River in 1827. The specific epithet (biloba) referring to the lobed leaves.

Distribution and habitat
This petrophile grows in heath over laterite from near the Canning River to near Wannamal in the Jarrah Forest and Swan Coastal Plain biogeographical regions of southwestern Western Australia.

Conservation status
Petrophile biloba is classified as "not threatened" by the Western Australian Government Department of Parks and Wildlife.